Detox
by Andrew Joshua Talon
Summary: There really is an easy way to explain all the weirdness and ridiculousness in Star Trek: Voyager. And of course, it's all because of Neelix. Buckle in, kids, this is gonna be a doozy...
1. Chapter 1

_Detox_

_A Star Trek: Voyager fanfiction by Andrew J. Talon_

DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: Voyager, Deep Space Nine, The Next Generation et al are the property of CBS Television, Paramount and the creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.

_Yeah, I know. I go on hiatus from fic writing for one month and this is the monstrosity I cook up. Well, least it's short._

_Okay, I lied. It isn't short. And it's inspired by SFDebris. So yes, this is going to be something._

* * *

There's a simple way to explain _all_ of Voyager's various crap and lack of sense or continuity...

* * *

"Doctor? You had better have a good explanation for bringing me down here," Janeway stated flatly as she strode down into _Voyager's_ sickbay. The Doctor was standing next to the scanner biobed, an unconscious Neelix restrained on it. The captain raised an eyebrow.

"And for tying Neelix to the table..."

"Indeed, I do Captain," the Doctor said cheerfully. "If you would indulge me and come over here...?"

Janeway grumbled and walked up to him. "Fine... What's all this-Ah!" The Doctor had whipped out a hypospray and injected her with it right in the neck. She gasped, and held the spot. She blinked a few times, her head... Clearing.

"Wh-What...?" She groaned and rubbed her temples. "Oh _God_ my _head..."_

"Yes, unfortunately that's a side effect of the cure," the Doctor said. "It turns out that Talaxians produce mood altering pheromones."

"Mood altering?" Janeway asked in disbelief. The holographic doctor nodded.

"Indeed, though they have repeatedly different reactions in numerous humanoid minds. On humans it can run the range of causing memory loss to... Psychotic breaks with reality."

"Captain?" Kes asked. Janeway jumped, and looked to see the Ocampan nurse standing nearby.

"Kes?! You're here?"

"I've been here, the whole time captain," Kes said, looking relieved. "You actually remember this time!"

"But I thought you evolved and..." Janeway trailed off. "Threw us ten thousand lightyears...?"

"I did that, but it was actually a side effect of interacting with Species 8472 and it wore off soon after," Kes explained. "It was causing me to warp reality all over the place!"

"Which, combined with the Talaxian pheromones have made things a bit... Problematic," the Doctor said. Janeway blinked.

"How problematic? Aside from me forgetting one of my _own crewmembers_ is still around and _not ascended to a higher plane of existence?"_

The Doctor coughed. Kes looked uncomfortable. Janeway frowned.

"... Well?"

"... You might want to look at the logs, Captain," the Doctor said. "It took me a long time to figure out the cause of all this strangeness..."

"How long?" Janeway asked. "I mean, sure, Neelix was onboard... When I destroyed the Array and stranded us here and..." The redhead felt her headache get worse. "Oh _God..."_

"At least a year," the Doctor said. He motioned to Kes, who smoothly moved a chair behind Janeway. The captain fell onto it, looking shocked and dismayed.

"So... What you're saying is... We were all _high?!"_ She gasped.

"A very crude descriptor but accurate enough for our purposes," the Doctor agreed. Kes shook her head.

"I just thought it was what you people did..."

"Like what?" Janeway asked. Kes shrugged, embarassed.

"Making believe about how you made a shuttle that can go to infinity... And Tom and you turning into salamanders and having... Um... Children..."

Janeway covered her face with her hands. She didn't think she was ever going to remove them. "And... I sent our logs to Starfleet..."

"Last week," the Doctor said, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder.

"The fact you survived even while... Impaired," Kes said carefully, "is still a great testament! Might even make for a wonderful series of fictional stories..."

"Well, at least _some_ good has come out of_ this..._ How soon can you cure us all?" She asked. The Doctor smiled cheerfully.

"A matter of hours. The senior staff has all been cured."

"Harry too?" Janeway asked.

"He was my first test subject, actually."

Janeway managed to reconcile a few of her conflicting memories of Harry from the past few years... And winced.

"How did he respond...?"

* * *

In the Astrometrics Lab, Seven of Nine was working on analysis of stellar phenomena while her data compiled from a previous survey. She considered the information carefully, paying only a bit of mind to the doors opening behind her. She looked over her shoulder, seeing Ensign Harry Kim.

"Ensign Kim," she greeted. "Is there something you desir-Mmph?!"

He... Was kissing her... He was kissing her?! And, as Seven's Borg augmented memories suggested based on the memories from billions of humanoids interacting in such ways, _very_ well. Enough her heart began to pump faster, her endocrine system peaked, her hormones flooded her blood stream...

He broke the kiss, breathing hard. Her own respiration system was taxed, as she panted.

"Dinner? My quarters? O' six hundred?" He asked. Seven blinked.

"... What?"

"Would you, like to, have dinner with me? My quarters? O' Six hundred?" Harry explained. Seven blinked again.

"... On what pretext did you-?"

"The pretext that we can continue kissing in there if you'd like after having dinner and talking about work," Harry said with a smile. "We don't even have to kiss but it would be nice."

Seven blinked for a third time, considering that maybe she should alter the routines that governed the rate.

"... Very well?" She said. Harry nodded, released her, and walked out the door. He stopped, and looked over his shoulder.

"By the way, you might want to try wearing more clothing," he said. "Just a suggestion." He smiled, and left. Seven stared after him for several more seconds than necessary, before looking back over her consoles.

The situation was unexpected and strange. Baffling might also work. On the other hand... It was... Intriguing.

_Very_ intriguing...

* * *

"I'm so, _so_ sorry Captain Janeway!" Neelix blubbered from behind a forcefield in sickbay. "I-I had no idea...! I mean, I didn't think...! I wouldn't...!"

"Neelix, Neelix, calm down," Janeway said, sipping some particularly strong coffee. Once again she cursed the fact she couldn't have brought along some coffee beans before the Caretaker flung them across the galaxy - It would have made things a lot more bearable and she wouldn't have wasted so much energy. _Voyager_ was a tough ship but viewing her with clear eyes it was clear they needed some vital repairs done. They'd taken refuge in an asteroid field and were mining it for vital iron, beryllium, aluminum, chromium, carbon, duranium - Real elements and minerals which they would transform into needed alloys and composites to fix up the hull.

Apparently they'd been making repairs with a succession of elements and materials that were absolutely fictional: Antonium, Bolomite, Tellerium... The list went on. Unfortunately, most of it was just made up names for already existing materials or things that had nothing to do with fixing the ship. Tellerium was particularly embarrassing - It was a fruit pulp that they thought would _fix their plasma injectors._

How the hell she was going to explain_ that_ to Starfleet... Well she'd figure something out. For now, she had the priority of calming down Neelix and getting some answers.

"I didn't know it would... I hadn't the slightest...!"

"Neelix! Start at the beginning!" Janeway growled. "You're a crewmember aboard this ship - Act like it! We can't fix _anything_ if you can't give me important information!"

"There there, Neelix," Kes said gently, "you can tell her."

"Well..." The hedgehog like alien sniffled, and slowly pulled himself together, "you know, the Talaxians were in a large war with the Haakonians about two decades ago."

"Right, right, I remember," Janeway said with a nod. "I mean... I think I do."

"Well, that was just the last war of the Talaxian Empire," Neelix continued mournfully. "Once, our influence spread across the entire Delta Quadrant."

"Now _there's_ a terrifying thought," the Doctor muttered nearby. Kes shot him a dirty look. Janeway nodded to Neelix to continue, and the self appointed morale officer did albeit with sniffles.

"But we began to collapse a few centuries ago thanks to the Borg, the Hierarchy, and many other powers. Talax was basically the last of our worlds," he said.

"Maintaining such a massive empire at warp speeds..." Janeway shook her head. "That's incredible."

"Oh, it wasn't that hard. It was mostly based on trade, with the trade having to be more amenable to us than to rival factions," Neelix explained. "We had large generation ships that crossed the Delta Quadrant, trading vital technologies and maintaining control over them so that when they burnt out, the races in question had to buy them again from us. They had to wait for one of our ships to pass by."

"A hydraulic empire?" Janeway asked. Neelix nodded.

"Something like that, yes... But when we tried to make it into, ya know, an _empire_ kind of empire the vast distances and the fact alien races were figuring out their own technologies made it fall apart. Among the defenses my people had, that allowed us to have this empire were genetically engineered pheromones that would affect different races in different ways. Some fell into homicidal rages at the merest scent of us, others were confused... Others kind of went... A bit insane..."

"Like us?" Janeway asked. Neelix coughed.

"The thing is, nearly every race in the quadrant is immune now! They developed it through contact with us over time. By my time, it was just a fairy tale! Something to encourage young Talaxians with self esteem issues. I had no idea it was still _working_ with me, believe me Captain!"

"I do Neelix," Janeway said. "Really... But until we can stop this, you're going to have to stay here."

"Ah... Will you allow me to address the crew with my show in order to apologize for everything I've done?" Neelix asked. Janeway smiled and nodded.

"Yes you may, Neelix. Besides... Might be safer, until we can sort out which memories actually happened... And which didn't."

"I swear, I didn't mean to give everyone catastrophic heartburn! Or hook the cooking system directly into the plasma conduits! It worked on _my_ ship, I thought it might work here!" Neelix cried.

"Well, that's a _few_ things sorted out," Janeway said dryly.

"Still, who knows? Maybe I affected myself, and Kes didn't actually break up with me," Neelix said hopefully. Kes stared at her former boyfriend.

"... No, that really did happen Neelix. Believe me, I _remember,_" the Ocampan said flatly. Neelix sighed.

"Nuts..."

* * *

"So, the Borg baby's been able to survive all this time?" Tom Paris asked in shock, rocking the little baby in his arms in the messhall. Torres shook her head as the baby grasped at Tom's PADD with a powerful grip. She sat across from him.

"Yes... Apparently it has a subspace power link. It just sapped power from nearby conduits automatically, and it just kept crawling on," she sighed. Tom holding the baby stirred up some primal maternal instincts in her, which she decided to save for later. Yes, _much_ later, she thought happily as she eyed her boyfriend in appreciation.

"So, what exactly are we going to call him?" Tom asked. The baby whined a bit, and Tom turned the PADD onto a lullaby. B'Elanna smiled and leaned across the table.

"Us? Since when did we adopt him?"

"Well, it's not like Chakotay is going to be a good choice," Tom said flatly. "He's too easily distracted."

"True," B'Elanna admitted. "On the other hand, he's not going to _bore_ it to death with his stories since he's not stoned out of his gourd anymore..."

"Speak of the devil," Tom said as the first officer entered the mess hall with a scowl. He raised a blonde eyebrow at the tattooed former Maquis. "Everything all right, Commander?"

Chakotary silently handed over a glass. Tom held it, holding the Borg baby in his other arm as he examined the cup. On it was emblazoned "SACRED SMOOTHIE".

"Care to explain this, Lieutenant?" Chakotay asked flatly. Tom looked up at his first officer, the picture of innocence.

"Now how do you know you didn't do that when you were on Talaxian Pheromones? Like the sacred baby lotion, or the sacred Hawaiian shirt, or the sacred bath towel..."

"I didn't mention those," Chakotay said in a growl. Tom coughed and looked over at his girlfriend.

"B'Elanna? Sweetie?"

"Sorry Tom, you're on your own," the chief engineer chuckled.

"I _could_ bring up that killer android race... The one with the tripolymer plasma?" Tom said wryly. B'Elanna adopted a dirty look.

"You're really gonna hit me with that, Mr. "Infinite Warp Speed Made Me Have Salamander Sex with the Captain?'"

"You were just as much to blame for that as me!"

"It was a hallucination! It wasn't _my_ fault!"

"Then it wasn't mine, either!"

Chakotay, now ignored, sighed and took the Borg Baby from Paris as he and B'Elanna argued furiously. He carried the gurgling baby away, rocking him gently.

"Yeah, I don't think we need to be in the middle of that," he told the child. He smiled down at him. "So... How would you like to hear a story, little one?"

The baby made a face, and blew a raspberry. "Pbbbbhtttt!"

The first officer sighed. "Everybody's a critic..."

* * *

_Yes, there is more. So much more. Dear Lord, I gave up Ponies for this?_


	2. Threshold

_Detox_

_A Star Trek: Voyager fanfiction by Andrew J. Talon_

DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: Voyager, Deep Space Nine, The Next Generation et al are the property of CBS Television, Paramount and the creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.

_Yeah, I know. I go on hiatus from fic writing for one month and this is the monstrosity I cook up. _

_Well, least it's short._

_Okay, I lied. It isn't short. And it's inspired by SFDebris. So yes, this is going to be something._

_Of course I'm handling the most infamous Voyager episode of all, co-written by my friend The Sage of Toads. But of course… There's a start to it all..._

* * *

In the conference room, the senior officers had gathered for a general briefing after reviewing their logs. Janeway leaned forward in her chair at the head of the table, looking at her officers and crew with a stony expression.

"All right... What do we know to have _actually_ happened? This is vital if we're going to save any kind of face with Starfleet Command," she said.

"Don't worry Captain, we won't let you fry," Tom Paris said helpfully. "After all, it'd be our butts too if they took _all_ this seriously..."

"The fact that the Talaxian pheromones affected me is most disconcerting," Seven supplied. She looked almost shyly at Harry Kim, who was sitting next to her with a happy smile. "However, it can be surmised that the incidents relating to your alliance with the Borg occurred."

"Obviously, there's Borg technology all over the ship and you," Janeway said. She checked her PADD. "So we _can_ confirm that..."

"And Species 8472, I can vouch for that," Kes added. "Believe me," she shook her head with a slight shudder.

"Somehow, surviving repeated encounters with the Borg seems far less likely than many of these other events," Tuvok observed.

"That the Borg were defeated by a crew suffering from hallucinations and breaks from reality is indeed... Embarrassing," Seven opined.

"It's not _all_ bad," Harry said with a smile at her. Seven actually _blushed._

"Indeed," she agreed. Everyone else at the table stared at this display. The Doctor grumbled.

"In any event, while my cure is effective in the short term," the hologram stated, "you should be mindful of relapses."

"If it happens during a _real_ crisis, we could be destroyed," Janeway said. "Kes, I'd like you to do shifts on the bridge. If any of us start to behave strangely, I want you to stop us right away."

"Understood Captain," Kes said with a smile. "I'm just pleased that you're all _seeing_ me again."

"Trust me, we're happy to see you too," B'Elanna said. She grumbled. "I can't _believe_ some of this nonsense..." She scowled at the Doctor and Kes. "Why didn't you intervene to stop this crap?!"

"Well, I couldn't _do_ much until I received my mobile emitter," the Doctor responded, "and there were plenty of _real_ emergencies that took up my time..."

"And you kept forgetting you'd even talked to me," Kes protested. "Even my psychic powers couldn't help - I was burnt out from getting us out of Borg space. Besides..." And here she gave a flat expression to everyone, "I did _plenty."_

She stood up, walked to the display screen, and tapped a few buttons. A video window appeared on the screen, of the holodeck. The entire senior staff was babbling and muttering and crying out about the ship being twisted up, in a large writhing pile of bodies... While Kes just watched in disbelief alongside the Doctor.

"_You're completely sure this isn't normal, right?"_ Kes asked. The Doctor sighed.

"_Despite my limited interaction with humanoids, yes, I am sure... Though they could be engaging in a Ktarian ritual for birthday celebrations."_

Kes blinked. _"And the purpose of this ritual?"_

"_To enjoy themselves," _the Doctor said.

"_You want to join in, Kes?" _Neelix asked with a bright smile.

"... _No,"_ Kes stated.

The recording ended. Janeway looked stone faced. Seven was... Almost _smirking._

"Well... The logs to Starfleet didn't include video. That's the one saving grace," she said.

"About that, Captain," Harry said, tapping his fingers on the conference table nervously. Janeway stared at him. He shrugged. "Yes, they got those too."

Janeway groaned. "Even the… The Warp Ten fiasco?" She looked to Kes, who even now was trying to vanish into the background. "Kes?"

"Well…" She tapped her fingers together. "Some parts of it I can tell you… Others I didn't directly see…"

"Please be as concise as possible," Tuvok said.

"I doubt it could be more embarrassing than the actual report I did," Chakotay said flatly.

"If you insist," Kes said with a shrug.

"We don't, but..." Janeway shrugged back. Kes sighed.

"At the time I wasn't really sure if this kind of thing was just how humans and other Alpha Quadrant species behaved. And you seemed so excited over the discovery of the new dilithium… But it was soon clear something else was going on..."

* * *

_Voyager's_ shuttlebay had several shuttlecraft, and they were all inrelatively good condition aside from unusual paint jobs. Kes liked to come down and look at them, alongside Neelix's ship the _Baxiel._ They were beautiful little craft, like metal fliers she'd seen on the surface of Ocampa.

She came up to the shuttlecraft called _Cochrane,_ a plate of food in her hands for Tom, Harry and B'Elanna. They'd been in there awhile and she wanted to feed them and check up on them at the same time…

Which was apparently a good thing, given the scene she came across.

Tom was in the pilot's seat, rocking back and forth hard like he was _humping_ the control console. Harry and B'Elanna were sitting against the back of the shuttle's cargo area, the latter in the former's lap.

"Warp Nine… Warp Nine point One… Warp Nine point two…!" Tom announced. "The port nacelle is vibrating again!"

"Transfer auxiliary power to compensate," Harry suggested, as he ran his fingers through B'Elanna's hair. Kes blinked repeatedly.

"Er… Harry? B'Elanna?" She asked carefully.

"Warp Nine point five… Warp nine point six… Warp nine point eight…!" Tom read off, now practically bouncing in his seat.

"Repeat procedure and construct additional pylons," B'Elanna suggested loudly, grinding herself in Harry's lap. The young ensign blushed, but continued to pet B'Elanna. Tom was about ready to bounce out of his seat. Kes walked up behind him, and looked over his shoulder at the control console.

"Tom? Tom… Tom, the only thing on here is that game you showed me on the tricorder, Tetris," Kes said. "Tom? Hello?"

"Warp nine point nine… Warp nine point nine five…!" Tom grinned as he bounced up and down in his seat. "I'm approaching the threshold!"

"Approaching the _what?" _Kes asked in disbelief. Tom gaped as the Tetris screen blinked a warning.

"The nacelle's losing integrity!"

"More auxiliary power!" Harry shouted.

"It's no use… I'm breaking up… I'm breaking…!" Tom fell out of the chair, just as his screen showed "Game Over".

"Aw man," Tom sighed, looking as depressed as though he'd gotten nothing for Christmas. Kes guessed, anyway. She'd never celebrated Christmas, but she understood it was something not to be ruined.

"Now what?" B'Elanna asked.

"I guess we'll just have to construct additional pylons," B'Elanna sighed.

"Guess we will," Harry sighed.

"Oh hey Kes," Tom said with a smile. "When did you get here?"

"... Um…" Kes blinked several times. "I'm… Gonna go. Enjoy these snacks."

"Ooh, thanks!" Tom said, reaching for the plate.

"Wait wait," B'Elanna said, "did you get this from Neelix?"

"... It was cooked in his kitchen, but not by him," Kes said carefully.

"Works for me," said B'Elanna, as she reached for some food from the plate. Harry and Tom soon followed. Kes headed off, shaking her head in disbelief.

* * *

It was the very next day when Tom was carried into the sickbay by a medical team followed by B'Elanna and Neelix. Kes looked up from the PADD she was reading and saw the look of horrible pain on Tom's face. Seeing Neelix, she immediately assumed the worst-Neelix was "experimenting" again.

"Kes!" B'Elanna called out. "Tom drank some of Neelix's coffee and he just collapsed!"

Bingo. Kes looked over Tom with a medical tricorder. "There's nothing wrong with him."

"The coffee… it was horrible… I…" Tom began making incoherent gurgling sounds.

Kes immediately looked at Neelix. "What did you put in it?"

"Nothing, it was just French Vanilla Roast!"

B'Elanna looked at Neelix. "You said it was something special you brewed up in honor of Tom going to Warp 10!"

Kes looked back and forth between the two. "Uh…?"

"Well of course it was! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find any decent French Vanilla Roast on this ship?" Neelix grumbled. Before B'Elanna could even say the R-word, he quickly added, "Without replicating it?"

B'Elanna stopped and grumbled as she was bested by Neelix. That was pretty humiliating.

"I'm going to die…" Tom whimpered.

"N-no you're not, you just had some bad coffee," Kes said, resting a hand on his shoulder as she tried to reassure him.

He started gasping dramatically.

"You're perfectly fine Tom. Stop horsing around."

"Totally am! And I'm dying... Argh...! " He cried out holding his chest and then to Kes's disbelief slammed himself into a bulkhead. He fell over onto the floor, groaning.

Suitably alarmed, Kes looked over to the Doctor. "Doctor, do something!"

The Doctor helped get him onto the biobed, and he began to scan the pilot with his tricorder. "Hm. He seems to be having an allergic reaction. What did he ingest?"

Kes gave pause. "What?"

"Just a cup of Neelix's coffee!" B'Elanna gasped.

The EMH continued to scan Tom and hummed. "This is strange."

B'Elanna looked from Tom to the Doctor. "What is?"

"He appears to be having an allergic reaction to water."

Kes grew alarmed. "What?!"

The Doctor ignored her yelp. "I don't know how this is possible, but it appears that his entire biochemistry is changing. His electrolytes are breaking down, interstitial fluids are congealing. His bladder is photosynthesizing."

Kes blinked several times, did… did the Doctor just toss a word salad for Torres to eat? If he did, she gobbled it down like it was delicious cake given the look of horror on her face. The Doctor grew even more concerned when Tom began to gasp for breath. "The alveoli in his lungs are changing. He's no longer processing oxygen."

B'Elanna was on the verge of a panic attack. "What do we do now?!"

"Stand back," the Doctor said smartly before calling to the computer. "Computer, erect a forceshield around the surgical bay."

Kes stepped back with B'Elanna as the forcefield appeared.

"Computer, remove all the air from within the forcefield and replace it with eighty percent nitrogen and twenty percent acidichloride."

"DOCTOR NO THAT WILL KILL HIM," Kes immediately protested before the EMH raised his finger to stop her. As she stopped and stared, Tom immediately calmed down and laid back. "Huh?"

"He can breathe… for now," the hologram announced.

B'Elanna sighed in relief, while Kes just shook her head over and over.

"What's happening to him?" B'Elanna asked.

"I have no idea, but I assume it has something to do with his experience on the shuttle." Tom screamed in agony, and the EMH quickly scanned him again. "His cellular membranes are deteriorating…" He dramatically looked to B'Elanna. "He's dying."

Kes just stared, she had no idea what was going on anymore.

The Doctor gestured to the doors. "I need to know more about what happened on that shuttle, and I need to know it now. Radiation levels, unexplained anomalies, anything!"

As the half-Klingon rushed out in a hurry, Kes shuffled over to the EMH. "Doctor?"

"Yes Kes?"

"A word with you?"

After making sure Tom was comfortable, the Doctor followed Kes aside. "Yes?"

"What are you doing?" She asked levelly. "You just locked Tom in a forcefield full of poison and sent B'Elanna running off for his Tetris High Score."

"Now, now Kes," the Doctor soothed. "I did no such thing, I just put a forcefield around him, I didn't change the air at all."

Kes stopped. "What?"

"No, I'm just playing along."

The Ocampan blinked slowly as she attempted to process this. "Playing… along?"

"Yes, the crew is under a lot of pressure being stranded on the other side of the galaxy. They probably need to find harmless ways to entertain themselves so they're playing a game to pass the time."

"You mean like… roleplay?" Kes asked.

"Precisely, and what's the harm in that?"

"That's what we have the holodeck for, isn't it?"

"Yes, but sometimes it's more fun to amuse yourself in an actual reality than a virtual one, or at least that's what I'm getting from all of this. It's perfectly harmless."

"Tom threw himself into a bulkhead, he might have a concussion," Kes noted.

"Just a mild one, at most," Doctor said. "Now, just relax and enjoy the show."

"You're losing me, aren't you?" Tom suddenly asked. "I'm gonna die…"

Clearing his throat, the Doctor got into character. "You're too stubborn to die, Mister Paris." He looked to Kes. "I want to try high saturation radiometric therapy. It might slow down his cellular mutation."

With a hesitant nod, Kes went over to the applicable console. "What should I actually use?"

"Just hit him with bursts of mild pain-killers until he falls asleep."

Kes nodded less hesitantly and went to fire up the happy-fun-time dispenser.

"Here lies Tom Paris, beloved mutant…" Tom moaned.

"A fitting epitaph, but I don't intend to let you use it just yet," the Doctor snipped back.

Kes finished firing up the emitter. "The 'Radiometric Emitters' are charged and ready."

The Doctor nodded. "Begin with forty five rads per second."

Kes obeyed, and the effect of the pain-killers was immediate with Tom's whimsical sigh. "Great. Now it'll read, beloved radioactive mutant."

The Doctor scanned him and nodded. "No effect. Increase the dosage to eighty five rads per second. I'm going to try inhibiting the cell mitosis with a biosuppresser field."

Kes obeyed again, and Tom this time giggled like a schoolboy. "Big funeral with lots of pretty girls all crying. Except Torres. Torres doesn't cry. Did you ever notice that? I don't trust people who don't cry."

Better not let B'Elanna find out about that one, Kes noted to herself.

"Of course, my father, he'd say crying is a sign of weakness. I never believed that." Tom looked to the Doctor. "Do you cry?"

"It's not in my programme." Laughter was though, and the EMH would have plenty of time to enjoy the sensation as he reviewed the logs for today.

Tom shook his head as the drugs continued their magical work. "Shame. You know, it's funny. What I remember most about being a kid are the times I spent in my room crying."

Oh the Doctor would be laughing for _days._

"I liked my room, though. It was quiet in there. People would leave me alone. I'd keep the door locked, read, play games. I lost my virginity in that room."

Kes did a double take and blushed.

Tom laughed. "Seventeen. Parents were away for the weekend."

"I'll note that in your medical file," the Doctor said drolly before he zapped him with a mild electric shock, eliciting a yelp of pain from him. "His lymphatic system is collapsing. Increase dosage to ninety eight rads per second."

Still blushing a bit, Kes "complied' and Tom was given another quick shot.

"Pepperoni!" Tom screamed suddenly, and Kes had to keep herself from laughing. "God, I'd love a pepperoni pizza with Kavarian olives right now. I'm starving!"

The Doctor gave Kes a flat look. "His life signs are critical. Maximum dosage."

A little more comfortable with this little game, Kes giggled and hit Tom again, who let out a happy sigh.

"Kiss me," he breathed dreamily.

The EMH looked back down at him. "What?"

"Not you." He nodded towards Kes. "Her."

Kes grew a bit wide-eyed at that and blushed as she considered it briefly.

"She can't breathe the atmosphere in here," the Doctor pointed out. "It does dampen the mood considerably."

"Then consider it a last request!" Tom pleaded.

Spot-on portrayal of a desperate, pathetic man, clearly Tom had studied Ensign Kim well the Doctor surmised.

"If we lowered the shield, you'd suffocate," Kes pointed out. What she failed to mention was that B'Elanna would put the Ocampan's head on an end of a bat'leth if her lips went anywhere near Tom's.

In his narcotic induced daze, Tom sighed. "Oh, what's the difference? I'm dying anyway. Do me a favour. When I'm gone, call Starfleet Headquarters and tell Dad that I did it. Tell him…"

With that he fell asleep, and the EMH broke into applause. "Well, that was brilliant acting on Tom's part."

Exasperation returning, Kes sighed. "This is too… bizarre. Now what?"

"Now we wait for a sign that the game is over. Usually in these roleplays a Game Master determines this. As we've heard no such announcement I suppose we can presume the game is still ongoing."

B'Elanna rushed back in. "Doctor, I have the information you requested, how is he?"

The Doctor looked back to B'Elanna. "I'm afraid... he didn't make it."

The half-klingon looked positively _devastated, _and let out a cry of despair before she ran to Tom's side. Kes winced at her reaction and looked to the EMH.

He smiled gamely. "I guess the game is still afoot, young Kes."

Kes looked back over to Torres, and felt a bit skeptical about this whole "game" idea.

* * *

By the next morning, Tom had woken up and was acting even _weirder_ than he was yesterday, attempting to pull clumps of his perfect hair out of his head to little avail. This increasingly worried Kes, as she watched from the EMH's side but fortunately the Captain was on the scene to nip this craziness in the bud. There was no time for Shenanigans aboard her ship, unless they were in the holodeck or the mess hall.

"Has he mutated further?"

Or not. Kes gave them an odd look as Tom licked the biobed and pawed at it with his hands while shaking his butt in the air.

"Well you can see for yourself," the Doctor stated diplomatically to gauge their response.

Kes looked back at Tom, and began to zone out as she stared at his swaying, taut human butt clad in his tight Federation uniform. She blinked, and found herself understanding the psyche of B'Elanna Torres more than ever.

Tom stopped acting weird for a moment and sat up to face his audience, breaking the spell his sculpted butt was casting on the women in the sickbay.

"Hey Kathryn," Tom said in his suave tone. Kes raised an eyebrow much like Tuvok would hearing him say that.

"Mr. Paris, I would prefer if you addressed me as 'Captain'."

"Right…" Tom stared at Janeway for a few moments.

Janeway stared back at him.

Kes looked back and forth between the two of them.

The EMH counted down quietly from ten.

"You know Kathryn, you remind me of Audrey Hepburn."

Kes didn't know who that was, but it must of been someone important and attractive given the flattered look on Janeway's face.

"Excuse me?" The Captain asked.

"Strong, elegant… Slimy…"

"Slimy?" Kes repeated before she looked to the EMH, who just rolled his eyes as he hid his mirthful smirk.

Janeway wasn't particularly sure how to take that last one, so she assumed it was his mutating talking. "I'm flattered you find me desirable, Mr. Paris but i-"

"Oh Captain, you're more than desirable. You're a solid ten, I want to… I want to just throw you over my shoulder and carry you off."

For Kes, this had gone from baffling to completely insane. When she saw the slight blush on the Captain's face, she slowly nodded to herself. Yes, this was now completely insane and a touch creepy as well.

"You know, I owe you a lot Captain… I spent years in jail, and then you came and broke me out…" He stared intently at her. "I've always admired you for giving me that chance to prove myself, that I wasn't just some punk rebelling against his father, or a Maquis traitor. You're like… my guardian angel… that I want to bang."

Janeway was now openly blushing, and Kes was now wondering where this game was going. Then she stopped wondering.

"Please don't do that in sickbay," the Doctor stated firmly as there were things he didn't want see roleplay or not.

Tom nodded. "Okay."

He suddenly leaped out of the bed. Before anyone could stop him he picked up Captain Janeway over his shoulder and ran off.

Kes looked at the EMH. "Tom just picked up the Captain and ran off with her."

"Well, that's certainly what he said he'd do," the Doctor said in relatively mild bemusement.

"This can't be part of this game they have going on, can it?" Right when Kes asked that, she and the Doctor both heard Phaser fire and shouting from down the corridor. "What."

She ran to the door and found several personnel who had attempted to stop Tom from making off with the Captain lying stunned on the floor. "Oh Caretaker…"

"Maybe I shouldn't have humored them," the Doctor admitted softly.

After giving the Doctor the most pointed glare she ever mustered, Kes tapped her badge. "Kes to the bridge, Tom just abducted the Captain."

"_You mean, due to mutating from energies beyond Warp 10?"_ Chakotay asked.

"No, he just seemed to feel like picking her up and running off with her," Kes sighed.

"_Like some kind of terrible mutation from the energies beyond Warp 10?"_ Harry asked.

"No! Not some-wait was that what you were trying to do?" Kes asked in disbelief. "Go beyond Warp 10 in the shuttle?"

"_With that new form of dilithium, yes,"_ Harry said.

"Even I know that's not possible!" Kes snapped.

"Mr. Kim was this some sort of transwarp drive?" the Doctor asked hoping for something resembling sanity. This had gone from what he thought was harmless roleplaying to something more serious.

"No, just a new form of dilithium we found and used," Harry said. "B'Elanna said it would work, and so did Tom, so I kind of went along with it. But it seems that Tom going past Warp 10 mutated him into some sort of horrible abomination!"

"But… He hasn't even gone on the test flight!" Kes tried. "That was in the shuttlecraft and…" The lights abruptly switched off, as the Doctor flicked from power loss. "What was that?"

"_We've lost main power! He must have caused the security teams to hit something important with a phaser blast!" _Harry shouted.

"Check Main Engineering! Find out what's going on!" the Doctor ordered. "It seems everyone is going crazy today."

"Why do I have to?" Kes asked flatly. The Doctor stared at her, and she blushed.

"Oh… Right…" She hurried out. She went down to Engineering, running into B'Elanna's office. The chief engineer was there all right… And was leaning next to a green button titled "Core Shutdown."

"B'Elanna! Hit that button again!" Kes shouted.

"Look what he did! He shut down our power systems! I need to reboot the system to get us running again!" Said B'Elanna. She turned to her console, and Kes smiled happily… Right up until she saw the chief engineer was typing in midair.

Kes facepalmed. So did Ensign Hacket, aka Seska, as she was working on her console nearby.

B'Elanna looked confused. "Huh? Which button?"

"The one right there, press it! Press it!" Kes shouted, pointing at the button in question.

B'Elanna blinked. "Why don't you press it yourself?"

Kes groaned, and jammed the button hard. The core roared to life, and all the lights flicked back on. She gave Seska a commiserating look as she had to deal with this sort of thing every day. The Bajoran returned it.

"Kes to Bridge, we have main power again!"

"_Good! The shuttle is headed off at warp speed!" _Harry cried.

Chakotay yelled out " Set course to pursue! We need to get them back!"

"It hasn't even left the hangar!" Kes practically exploded. "It's just sitting there, and Tom and the Captain are in it and... I've got a bad feeling about this." She turned and ran, muttering "Oh Caretaker! Oh Caretaker!" over and over as she made her way to the hangar bay.

The shuttle where all this started sat almost serenely in the shuttle bay. Kes took a deep breath before making her way to the door of the shuttle. She really hoped she wasn't right about what was going on in there. She mentally prayed to every god she'd learned about that she was wrong and she made a few gods up too just in case.

Kes opened the hatch to the shuttle. "Tom, whatever you're thinking don't-!"

She then cursed every swear word she'd learned on Voyager before slamming the door shut.

"I didn't need to see that," Kes mumbled. She shook her head frantically. "I didn't need to see that… That's never going to leave my mind." She smacked her head. "Grrr…! Damn my endemic memory!"

On the upside, that was the happiest she'd ever seen Janeway in… ever.

"At least she's consenting," Kes muttered before combadge chirped.

"Doctor to Kes? Doctor to Kes, please respond," The Doctor called through the combadge.

Kes sighed and answered. "Yes Doctor?"

"Mind making sure that the ship doesn't crash into anything? We seem to be moving at high warp speed," the Doctor said.

"So?" Kes asked.

"Within a solar system. A tightly packed solar system," the Doctor said. "The proximity alarm is going off every-Yes, there it is again, and-Again, and-"

Kes groaned and made sure to lock the shuttle before running back to the bridge. By the time she gets up there, she was out of breath.

"Need... to work out... more... oh…" She panted in the turbolift. The doors opened, and she stumbled out onto the bridge.

"W-Wait a second! I need… I need…" Her eyes bugged out as she saw the main viewer. More specifically, the rapidly approaching planetary ring system.

Ensign Pablo Baytart, the relief helmsman on Voyager, was flying the ship through a ring system.. At warp 8.9. He looked to be earning the nickname Leadfoot. The fact he was keeping them in the system going around in circles was impressive.

"PABLO NO!" Kes screamed.

"We have to catch up with the shuttle! Which is travelling at infinite speed!" Harry said. "Right in front of us!"

"Tuvok, can you get a lock on it?" Chakotay asked. Kes looked to her mentor in hope.

"I'm attempting to keep a lock on the shuttle," Tuvok said.

"Wha… But… There _is_ no shuttle!" Kes cried. "There is no shuttle to track!"

"Quiet Kes! We have to save the Captain and Tom!" Chakotay ordered.

Kes pinched the bridge of her nose. "Commander, think. Even if the shuttle was out there and traveling at infinite speed would it be possible for a ship traveling at finite speed to catch up with it?"

"Damn you're right," Chakotay swore.

Kes sighed in relief.

"Then we'll have to release the limiters and go all out after them at infinite speed as well! I want Neelix on the bridge, I need to know exactly how he was able to… Kes? Are you alright?"

Kes's eyes were rolled back and she was foaming at the mouth with barely contained frustration that manifested as a long, silent mental scream lasted fifteen seconds before a bright orange glow snapped her out of it.

Tuvok had a phaser out just in case.

"Oh... Sir?" Pablo asked.

"Ah, right…" Chakotay hummed, as they skimmed the atmosphere of a gas giant. "Hmmm…"

"Hull temperature increasing to 3000 Kelvin… And back down again," warned Harry.

Now what was she going to do? It was like they wouldn't listen to reason… Wait! That was it!

"Hang on one second!" Kes cried. She clapped her hands together, and did a quick bit of a dance she remembered seeing Neelix perform. She then waved her hands around.

"Okay, I did some ancient Ocampan space magic!" Kes said happily.

"Really?" Chakotay asked.

"Really," Tuvok asked flatly.

"Hmmm… What kind of Ocampan space magic?" Chakotay asked skeptically.

"Ancient Traditional Ocampan Space Magic that can only be performed once in a great emergency," Kes said, and was worried as Tuvok wasn't saying anything about this. Maybe he was just as fed up with the insanity as she was? "Practiced by my uh… oppressed ancestors for the last 27 years."

"Hmmm... It sounds sacred enough," Chakotay said with a nod. "Okay! Let's go back... AT INFINITE SPEED!"

Kes danced around a bit as Chatokay watched closely. She managed to include doing a handstand to look impressive.

"Ancient Ocampan Magic is truly mysterious…" Chakotay said in awe.

"We are now traveling at infinite speed," Kes said. She patted the shoulder of the Helmsman… While dropping them out of warp with her other hand. "Don't screw this up Pablo!"

"I sure won't!" Pablo said happily. "Wow! What's that bright thing in front of us?"

"That's… What it looks like when we're going at infinite speed!" Kes said quickly.

"Kind of looks like a sun."

"Doesn't it though?" Kes said with a forced smile.

"Wow, infinite speed is kind of slow," Harry commented.

"The faster you go at infinite speed, the slower you seem," Kes said.

"Makes sense to me!" Harry said with a nod. Tuvok was blinking, as though trying to resolve that.

"Everything else is," he decided.

Kes wanted to beat her head against a bulkhead. Everyone had gone crazy, even she was seeing things like that weird man in a captain's uniform that hovered in air with popcorn watching this sad display.

"Who are you?" Kes asked. The man winked and then vanished. Kes blinked… And cleared her head. She had more important things to worry about than whether or not she was going insane too.

"Yes, we've caught up with the shuttle! Let's go!" Harry called out.

"Ahh…" Kes pointed up at the ceiling. "LOOK! A GIANT TRIBBLE!"

_Oh come on, that can't possibly-_

"Where?!" Everyone cried. Kes resisted the urge to facepalm. She quickly set the coordinates on the helm, and _Voyager_ flew off towards the nearest M-Class planet. Which, fortunately, was in this system.

"Oh, nevermind! Just an illusion from… Ancient Ocampan Space Magic!" Kes cried. "Oh look! There's a planet! The shuttlecraft landed there!"

"Right! Let's beam down to the planet the shuttle's on!" Harry shouted.

"Yes, to the planet!" Kes called out. "I'll set up the transporter room, let's go."

She was able to get the finicky thing working though… And beamed them to the shuttlebay. They walked up to the shuttle, shining flashlights on the hull of the vessel despite it not being dark.

"Well, there's the shuttle," said Harry. "But where are they?"

"Commander," Tuvok stated. "I am detecting two life signs inside."

It didn't take them long to find Tom and the Captain, lying naked atop their uniforms and underwear in an obvious post-coital glow, happily discussing all the salamander babies the latter was going to have.

Harry turned his head away and held his hands over his face.

Chakotay stared the sight before him" ... I don't know what I'm going to put in my report."

"I look forward to reading it," Tuvok stated and there just seemed to be a hint of something in his tone.

Kes then walked over. "Is everything okay?":

"Besides the Captain and Tom being salamanders with babies?" Harry asked.

"They're….nevermind," Kes sighed.

"So... So we bring them along?" Ensign Kim inquired.

"Yes," Kes shrugged. "Might as well."

"No. Leave them. We don't belong in their world, they don't belong in ours," Chatokay said with an overtone of ancient oppressed traditional wisdom and an undertone of "I don't want to be reminded of this ever again."

Kes missed that undertone as she finally snapped.

* * *

Later... In sickbay the Doctor gave Janeway a bit a look before saying. "Congratulations, Captain... You are human again…"

Chakotay moaned as he came to with a black eye, a bloody lip and some chest pain.

Kes was waking up from her own rage-induced blackout. "W-what happened?"

Tom laughed nervously. "Oh... Well... Awkward stuff…"

"Oh, right. Salamanders," Kes said as she remembered that.

"Yeah…" Tom said a bit embarrassed.

Kes patted Tom on the shoulder. "Well, at least she enjoyed it."

He gave her a confused look and shivered. " You think so?"

Kes nodded. "Yeah, I know these things."

"I don't even remember it…" Janeway admitted.

"Probably best you don't," Kes said with an odd gleam in her eye. "Or don't attempt to remember. Or recreate what could've been. Or I'll kill all of you. Starting with Chakotay."

Everyone slowly was backing away from Kes. Even the Doctor.

Chakotay looked utterly confused. " What did I do...?"

"You questioned my Traditional Oppressed Ocampan Ancestors, hypocrite," Kes remarked.

Chakotay gave her a sheepish expression. " Oh, sorry…"

Kes hugged him. "Oh, I forgive you."

The Doctor at this point wondered if something was going around making the crew act insane. A project he was sure would have to be fit into his very small spare time given this crew.


	3. Chapter 3

_Detox_

_A Star Trek: Voyager fanfiction by Andrew J. Talon_

DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: Voyager, Deep Space Nine, The Next Generation et al are the property of CBS Television, Paramount and the creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.

_Yeah, I know. I go on hiatus from fic writing for one month and this is the monstrosity I cook up. _

_Well, least it's short._

_Okay, I lied. It isn't short. And it's inspired by SFDebris. So yes, this is going to be something._

* * *

"What do you _mean_ they're both still alive on my ship?!" Janeway demanded as she stood in front of the stasis chambers in Sickbay. The Doctor shrugged.

"Well, Suder merely went into a healing trance - Betazoids can do that - And he's been in stasis ever since... Except for a few times..."

"What few times?" Janeway demanded.

"Well, when the Hirogen invaded I thought he'd be an able combatant - Apparently he was, enough for the Hirogen to allow him to live and put him into stasis during downtime," the Doctor said. "Frankly, he felt he deserved it given he did murder his fellow crewman."

"And you didn't tell me because...?" The captain groaned as the doctor opened his mouth, "you did and I forgot because of the damn Talaxian madness!"

"Indeed," the Doctor said. "In fact, you even suggested taking him out so you could hunt him down for sport."

"Do I want to know how _many_ times I asked that?" Janeway asked. The Doctor decided to change the subject.

"As for Seska... Perhaps I'll let her explain things," he said. Janeway turned around and Seska appeared in her Bajoran form. The captain frowned as Seska grimaced.

"Captain," she said.

"Seska," Janeway returned. "Exactly what the hell went on with you? Don't tell me you were..."

"On your side? Yes," Seska said. "Sort of... Apparently the Talaxian pheromones made me think you were all out to get me and that I was an Obsidian order agent, so I fled to the Kazon."

"And once you were with them?" Janeway pressed. Seska snorted.

"Well I couldn't very well just _leave,_ could I? Hell, I did everything to keep those morons from actually capturing you! What, you think I'd take living in miserable, squalid conditions with aliens that make the Klingons look civilized over _Voyager? _They didn't even take _showers!" _Seska sneered. "It was only after I had enough time away I realized something was going on... And by then..."

"But you looked Cardassian," Janeway insisted. "How did you...?"

Seska stared at Janeway. "Exactly what makes you think the Kazon would have the technology to _undo_ a Cardassian trans-species surgery?"

"Seska is _part_ Cardassian," the Doctor clarified. "But with sixty years of their occupation of Bajor, that's not exactly unprecedented."

"And apparently that's what you took away from it," Seska sighed. "And what I did, too..."

"When we were stranded..." Janeway realized. "You convinced Culluh to spare us?"

Seska huffed. "It wasn't a _challenge._ The idiot ate up my nonsense about 'making you live without your technology'. I was planning on gassing them all and bringing the ship back. I had my baby to think about."

"So, your child and Chakotay's...?"

Seska groaned and looked aside. The Doctor smiled disarmingly.

"Now now. The affects of the pheromones are unpredictable across different species. You would have probably thought a hook spider was your baby."

"It was close enough," Seska muttered. She shook her head. "_Anyway..._ I was knocked out by Paris's attack with the Talaxian raiders. You all thought I was dead... And of course, seeing me walking around the ship after all that wouldn't have been wise-"

"So I fixed her up with a bit of cosmetic surgery, and she is now Ensign Hackett!" The Doctor said cheerfully.

"What cosmetic surgey? You changed my _hair color,"_ Seska stated flatly. The Doctor shrugged.

"Close enough for our purposes."

"Ah... Well..." Janeway sighed. "I feel I owe you-"

"You don't, really," Seska said. "Let's just say... We've all had a rough time in this Quadrant."

"No kidding," Janeway said dryly. "So... Any other dead crewmembers running around I should know about?"

The Doctor coughed. "Well..."

"Hey Doctor, I need some..." Lyndsay Ballard blinked at them. She then turned around. "Right, I'll see you later... Nothing to see here! I'm just dead!"

Janeway watched her go, and then she looked over at the Doctor. The hologram shrugged.

"It's probably going to get steadily worse. Kes has been the therapist for everyone onboard who isn't dead."

"That's encouraging... I hope," Janeway said.

* * *

"You were alive this whole time?!" B'Elanna demanded angrily. "What the _hell,_ Seska?!"

"Well, it's not like I didn't try to get through to you," Seska defended herself, as they sat in the mess hall. "Over and over again, but you thought I was a hallucination... Or worse."

B'Elanna stared at the flinching Bajoran. "... How bad did I get?"

Seska sighed. "Well... I managed to escape getting hit by that plasma torch in time."

"... I'm sorry," B'Elanna said with a soft sigh. Seska shrugged.

"Eh... It's in the past." She smirked. "Besides, I've got plenty of blackmail pictures of you and Paris to make up for it."

B'Elanna flushed, and growled at her. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Well, it's not like I _have_ to," Seska said. "You two embarrass yourselves enough as it is. Naughty B'Elanna, such an exhibitionist~."

"The ship isn't _that_ big!" B'Elanna protested, bright red.

"You just enjoy getting off in places you might get caught," Seska teased.

"Oh, and you don't have that streak?" B'Elanna asked flatly. Seska huffed.

"Please! Me and the rest of the unaffected crew had to stay sane! We didn't get the luxury to pretend otherwise!"

"Hello Seska, B'Elanna," Kes greeted brightly. Seska glanced at the Ocampan, and sighed. B'Elanna's eyes widened slightly, and she let out a little laugh.

"Hello Kes. You're naked again," Seska said flatly. Kes looked down and blinked.

"Oh..." She shrugged. "Oops. So, how is everything going?"

"Just fine," Seska said. B'Elanna managed a nod.

"Ah, yeah... Fine..."

Kes smiled warmly at B'Elanna. "No need to be shy, B'Elanna. You've seen me in more... Disheveled states." She turned and walked off, leaving a hotly blushing and confused B'Elanna.

Seska blinked. "Wait a minute... She wasn't lying about that time you and Paris-?"

"Shut up Seska!"

"But I honestly want to know! I mean, you never showed any interest in that sort of thing back in the Maquis-"

"SHUT UP SESKA!"

"All right, all right!"

* * *

"Hello Neelix," Harry said pleasantly on the other side of the forcefield. "How are you doing?"

"Oh, better than I was," Neelix said, sitting on the couch in his quarters and reading through some PADDs. Kes was next to him, patting him on the shoulder a bit. "I'm a bit depressed still... I mean, _really_ depressed..." The Talaxian sighed and bowed his head. "I really didn't mean for any of this to happen... Frankly, I wouldn't blame you for kicking me off the ship right now!"

"Come on Neelix, you've been useful lots of times. We're not going to just throw you off," Harry said consolingly.

"Right! We're still friends, after all," Kes said with a smile. "I mean... Better friends than romantic partners."

"Are you sure? Because I thought-"

"_Very_ sure," Kes said with some steel. Neelix coughed, and nodded.

"You know... In hindsight a lot of things make a lot more sense that I was just influencing you," Neelix admitted. Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Such as?"

"Well, Kes still being around, of course, but Talaxians often see their departed loved ones after a time, it's how our brain chemistry works," Neelix explained. "I just thought that... Since I cared about her so much, that's what I was seeing."

Kes sighed and patted him on the shoulder. Again.

Harry shook his head in some disbelief. How the hell the Talaxians were able to maintain a civilization when they were seeing so many things that weren't there was astonishing. "And... Anything else?" He asked.

"There was the time everyone thought the Captain was dead," Neelix said.

"Oh Caretaker," Kes muttered.

"I remember that... What actually happened?" Harry asked. Kes sighed.

"Well..."

* * *

In sickbay, Kes watched on in confusion as Chakotay bent over the main biobed, weeping. There was nothing on the bed that should be causing this, but the filthy, exhausted looking man seemed heartbroken.

"Katheryn! No! Please!" He sobbed.

"Commander, I assure you, everything is _fine_ with the Captain!" The Doctor said irritably. "In fact... She's _right there!"_ The Doctor pointed at the Captain, who was standing next to Kes. The two had been on a scouting mission in a shuttlecraft and had returned with a weeping Chakotay holding nothing, and a silent Janeway.

"Oh Katheryn... I'm so sorry... It's all my fault," Chakotay wept.

"Captain? Can you please tell the Commander that you are alive?" Kes asked. Janeway shook her head.

"I can't believe it... I'm actually dead...?" The captain muttered. Kes gaped.

"CAPTAIN! You're not dead! You're just fine!"

"No... I won't believe it! I can't believe it! I'm not dead, I just can't be!" Janeway argued with the air in front of her. Kes grabbed Janeway's shoulders and shook her.

"CAPTAIN!"

"I'll inform the crew," Chakotay said miserably, walking off through the doors. Kes followed, as the Doctor facepalmed.

"Not again," he muttered. Janeway lingered, and then ran out after Kes.

"Commander!" Kes tried. "Please! Look, let's just calm down and talk this out-OOF!"

Kes was bowled over by the captain, and was left sprawled on the deck. She groaned and rubbed her cheek. "Ow...!"

"Oh... Kes... Please, tell me you can see me!" Janeway begged, bending down onto her knees. Kes looked up at her in disbelief.

"... Yes Captain, I can see you," she said slowly. Janeway sighed.

"Oh thank goodness... Can you please tell the rest of the crew that I'm really not dead? That I might still be alive?"

"You _are_ alive!" Kes shouted. Janeway smiled.

"That's the spirit!"

The Ocampan groaned.

* * *

"So... You're saying the Captain isn't dead, she's just separated from her body somehow?" Harry asked skeptically. "I dunno, she looked pretty dead to me..."

"She isn't _dead!_ She's _right there!"_ The Doctor shouted, pointing at her again. Janeway was smiling broadly.

"I knew I could count on you all!"

"Ugh! Yes, yes! She's just wandering around, disconnected from her body!" Kes finally said, frustrated.

"We could attempt to sense her with our telepathic powers," Tuvok suggested. Kes smiled and nodded.

"Yes! Yes we could! And that she's actually alive!"

"And maybe we can reconfigure the internal sensors to find her," B'Elanna posited. The Doctor stared in shock.

"What?! Are you Ghostbusters now?"

"I admit, it sounds farfetched but it's our best shot," Chakotay said. "Now, get on it. Dismissed!"

"That's more like it!" Janeway said happily, as the impaired members of her crew left the meeting room. She followed, leaving the Doctor and Kes. Kes sighed and rubbed her temples.

"So... How are we going to get them out of this one?" She asked. The Doctor hummed.

"Well... If they think she's really dead, it wouldn't be any different from the other crewmembers they think were deceased."

"This is the _captain_ though," Kes pressed. "And the difference is she _thinks_ she's dead!"

"Well... Perhaps that is the key then," the Doctor suggested. "Maybe we need to convince her she _isn't_ dead... But rather, that she's near death and an alien being is attempting to devour her soul."

Kes stared at the Doctor. "... What."

The EMH shrugged. "Well, it seems appropriate given the ridiculousness of the situation..."

"Oh for..." Kes sighed. "Fine... But I'm starting to think a lot of these decisions of yours are just to mess with them."

"We have to make our entertainment on the ship of the damned somehow," the Doctor suggested philosophically.

* * *

Some time later, Janeway was standing in main engineering as Torres and Kim got to work.

"I've reconfigured the lateral sensor array to scan subspace," Torres said cheerfully.

"Don't forget to run a magneton sweep," Janeway said.

"The forward array is ready to scan for temporal phase-shifting, chronoton particles or field flux," Kim reported.

"I'm going to activate the magneton scanner. It might pick up an anomalous presence," Torres added. There was silence for a time and Janeway smiled. She totally wasn't dead! She was just... Displaced or cloaked or something! Happened all the time!

Kes read these thoughts from Captain Janeway... And sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. She turned to the Doctor.

"You ready for this?" She asked. The Doctor smiled and nodded.

"Naturally!"

Seska, who was posing as Ensign Nobody, had finished doing some configurations on the Doctor's mobile emitter. She sighed and nodded.

"We're ready."

"Proceed," the Doctor said. Seska activated the mobile emitter, and the Doctor's form changed. He now resembled a middle aged man in an old fashioned Starfleet uniform. "How do I look?" He asked in a deeper voice.

"Just as the records say you should," Seska said. She shook her head in disbelief. "We're really going to make her think she's not dead with the image of her dead father?"

"Have some faith, Miss Seska," the Doctor said. "After all, one illusion in front of another is just the right way to approach Captain Janeway's psychology."

"Because she's... Insane?" Seska guessed.

"Well... At the moment... Yes." He walked over to Janeway, and engaged her in conversation. Kes sighed.

"I'd better get to my part of the act," she said, turning and hurrying off. Seska rolled her eyes and walked over to a nearby console. She'd at least make sure they didn't burn out the magneton scanner array, they kind of needed that...

Kes emerged from Tuvok's quarters, looking a bit depressed. And honestly, she was. The Doctor, still in the guise of Admiral Janeway, was talking heatedly with the captain. And she could hear what he was saying.

"Really Kathryn, you need to understand... I raised you to be a scientist, but look around you! Isn't this at the very least something you can open your mind to?" He asked.

"You said it yourself, I always took the rocky path over the smooth one," Janeway replied. The Doctor reached out and squeezed Janeway's shoulder. The captain flinched.

"This will all be much easier... After tomorrow."

"You mean... The memorial?" Janeway asked. The Doctor nodded.

"Yes... And so we'll-Uh..." The Captain collapsed. The Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Well, that's what she gets for not eating or sleeping for three days," he grumbled, picking her up and carrying her out as Tuvok continued to stare outside the viewport in his quarters. Kes looked concerned.

"Will she be all right?"

"I'll inject her with some nutrients and we'll let her rest. I believe Seska will have the holo emitter set up for tomorrow," the Doctor said. Kes frowned.

"I have to admit, I'm skeptical about this."

"Well, the captain is going to need all the help she can get to reject this and get back to reality," the Doctor said. "Or the closest we can manage."

"But really... Posing as a demon?" Kes asked. The Doctor shrugged.

"Well... She did go to a Catholic school growing up."

"A what?" Kes asked. The Doctor sighed.

"Let's just say it had some influence on her that this has brought out..."

* * *

The memorial service was... Nice, but really. Kes liked the captain a lot, but even she thought this was a bit over the top.

"When I came to this ship I resented the fact that Captain Janeway was responsible for our being stranded here in the Delta Quadrant. I didn't think that she made the right decision and I certainly didn't want to serve under her command. In the beginning I fought her. Even when she made me Chief Engineer I didn't trust her reasons. I kept looking for a hidden agenda. I actually believed that she'd set me up to fail. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. She saw, she saw something in me that I didn't see. She saw a worthwhile person where I saw a lost and hostile misfit, and because she had faith in me I began to have faith in myself. And when she died, the first thing I thought was that I couldn't do this without her. That I needed her too badly - her strength and her compassion. But then I realised that the gift that she gave me, and gave a lot of us here, was the knowledge that we are better and stronger than we think. I wish I had said these things to her, I wish I'd taken the time," B'Elanna said in complete earnestness.

"Would anyone else like to say something?" Chakotay asked. Harry stood up and walked... Right past Janeway watching silently.

"I swear, I can almost see her right here!" Neelix sniffled, dabbing his eyes. Kes rolled her own as Harry began to speak.

" I would, sir. I know Captain Janeway wouldn't want us to be sitting around moping. She'd want us to be cheering each other up remembering the good times, like that away mission when we found all those bushes of over-ripe fruit. Must have eaten half a kilo. My hands and mouth were all purple, and the Captain, the Captain came and sat down next to me, and her mouth was all stained too. She put her arm around my shoulder and she said, she said 'Ensign, these are the times we have to remember'. It's, it's, sorry," Kim sniffled, walking back to his seat. Chakotay patted him on the back.

"That's all right. Let us honor the captain one last time..."

"Is there still time for me to burn myself in her honor?" Asked Ensign Juliet Jarot, holding a can of oil and a phaser. Kes gaped in alarm, but Chakotay waved the Betazoid down.

"No need... We don't need to have another funeral so soon," Chakotay said, actually looking a bit disturbed himself. Kes breathed a sigh of relief. Janeway stood by the window and looked out it, watching a torpedo casing float away. The Doctor, still in the guise of her father, approached from behind and squeezed her shoulder.

"Now Kathryn... Do you understand?" He asked. "You must accept this..."

"I can't... I won't..."

"Now... I had to accept it when I died."

"But I want to stay," Janeway almost whined. "I want to help them!"

"As a voiceless ghost? Captaining them beyond the grave?" The Doctor asked.

"I cannot imagine anything more terrifying," Seska snarked.

"Please Kathryn, you must come!" The Doctor insisted.

Kes looked nearby. Seska was working on the portable holoemitter, but she was drawing attention. If any of them recognized her...

"Look everyone! Neelix is hiding condiments!" Kes shouted. The crew fell upon Neelix, who yelped and cried out.

"NO! NO, I SWEAR I'M NOT! AAHHHH!"

"Sorry Neelix," Kes winced. Janeway looked at the chaos of the messhall and frowned.

"See, they need me! They can't get along without me!"

"Sure they can," the Doctor said, growing impatient. Kes's little distraction might get people injured! "Besides, we're running out of time!"

"What's the rush? Why can't I... Unless... You don't want to help me cross over!" Janeway gasped. "My father never hid the harsh side of life from me! What are you hiding?!"

"You've caught me!" The Doctor cackled, as Seska finished her work. A holographic fiery portal appeared behind him. "I'm an antagonistic being of malice, far beyond mortal comprehension, who serves the Lord of Darkness and will devour your soul for all eternity!"

Janeway gaped. "You mean, you're a... A..."

"Yes! I am-!" The Doctor began.

"A life force sucking alien!" Janeway cried.

"A demon-Wait, what?" The Doctor asked in disbelief. Janeway nodded.

"Yes, of course! You're an alien posing as a demon to take me to a horrific realm where you'll feed on my spiritual energy for all eternity!"

"... Sure, whatever!" The Doctor cried, smiling evilly. "Now, come with me or perish!"

"... No!" Janeway said. The Doctor sighed.

"Well that's it for me. You win! Have a nice life, Kathryn." And he turned and walked through the portal. Janeway sneered.

"Go back to hell! Coward!" She growled.

The Doctor quickly shifted back to his original form, once behind the holographic portal... And Kes went with her last part in the charade. She held up her hypospray... Which was knocked out of her hand by a thrown bowl of soup. Janeway turned and stared in confusion and mounting panic...

"Oh for Caretaker's sake!" Kes groaned. She reached up and used the Vulcan Neck Pinch on Janeway, and she crumpled. The Doctor made his way back over, looking disapproving.

"Now Kes, that's going to be a bit harder to work around-"

"Don't care! Let's just sort this out, now!" Kes growled. The Doctor held his hands up.

"All right, all right! Calm down..." The hologram may have been invulnerable, but he hid behind Seska anyway. Kes pissed off wasn't something he wanted to deal with.

* * *

Kim shook his head, as Kes finished her tale. "You know, I can't really blame you for becoming so frustrated," he said. "I'd have probably started..." He laughed a bit. "Breaking stuff and screaming and screwing around with everyone. Like, remember that world with all the women who made me think I was one of their people, who beat me up with phallic objects? That felt like punishment!"

He laughed... And looked over at Kes who was looking nervous. "... You're kidding."

"It wasn't quite as-" Kes tried, but Harry held up his hand.

"No, no, nevermind. I think I'm better off not knowing."

"Not even if it means knowing about your fifteen children?" Kes asked with utter sincerity in her gaze. Harry paled.

"Fif...Fif... Fif...?"

Kes broke down laughing, as did Neelix. Harry flushed.

"Gotcha," the blonde Ocampan teased. Harry huffed.

"Very funny."

"Yeah! So, when were you going to tell him about his fifteen children?" Neelix asked without an ounce of humor. Kes sighed.

"Remind me why I wanted to have your children again?"

"You were in heat?" Neelix asked.

"Oh yes, that's why," Kes said happily. "I'm so glad I didn't stay alone with you when I was in that state!"

"Awww," Neelix sighed, looking depressed. Harry shook his head, and decided to head out. He had more than enough to do with all the repairs they needed to get done.

And he got plenty of teasing from everyone about being caught with Seven in the Astrometrics lab...

Again.


	4. Laundry

_Detox_

_A Star Trek: Voyager fanfiction by Andrew J. Talon_

DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: Voyager, Deep Space Nine, The Next Generation et al are the property of CBS Television, Paramount and the creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.

_Yeah, I know. I go on hiatus from fic writing for one month and this is the monstrosity I cook up. _

_Well, least it's short._

_Okay, I lied. It isn't short. And it's inspired by SFDebris. So yes, this is going to be something._

* * *

"And as for the final note for today's meeting," Janeway said, leaning back in her chair to look over the senior staff gathered, "until repairs are done, every bit of power that can be used for the replicators and fabrication has to be saved."

"The holodecks are one thing, sure, but if you're asking us to give up the sonic showers after the detox," B'Elanna said warningly, "you might have an _actual_ mutiny on your hands."

Nobody else reacted as though they thought it was a joke. Thus, being a good captain once sober, Janeway spoke quickly.

"Nothing of the sort," Janeway said. "But laundry is consuming a fair amount of power. We're going to have to cut back. And that said, it might be helpful if we all relaxed things a bit."

"Casual week, you mean?" Tom asked. He shrugged. "Might be a nice change of pace."

"It's settled then," Janeway said with a nod. "We'll save up the power and try to relax a bit. After all," and here she smiled, "this _is_ our home. Treating it like such might be better for all of us."

"And Starfleet regulations?" Chakotay asked. Janeway rolled her eyes.

"After what I've seen? I think they can have a rest. Dismissed."

The crew rose and filtered out, Kes lingering. Janeway looked up at the blonde Ocampan. "Kes? Something I can do for you?"

The nurse winced. "Captain, there is a bit of an issue with this..."

"Hm? What do you mean?" Janeway asked. "B'Elanna told me the laundry system's pretty overtaxed but everyone should have enough casual clothing to-"

"Errrr... That's the issue," Kes said carefully. Janeway stared at her.

"Mind speaking _plainly,_ Kes?" She asked in her very best "I'm The Captain So Don't Waste My Time" voice.

"Well..."

* * *

In her quarters, Janeway was staring in disbelief at her closet. Her _almost_ entirely empty closet. She looked over at Kes, who was smiling consolingly.

"What do you _mean_ I had _all _the casual clothing _burned?!"_ Janeway demanded. Kes winced.

"I'm sorry Captain, but it was... Um... Something I was building up to."

"Don't _build_ up to it, tell me!" Janeway cried. She sighed and rubbed her face. "Please tell me it was at least for a _good_ reason?"

"It was to kill space parasites that were trying to eat the ODN lines," Kes said with a straight face. Janeway lowered her hands and stared at her.

"That only affected _casual_ clothing?"

"Well..." Kes winced. "Okay, so it was just on a whim... Was a pretty fun party though. B'Elanna was actually open to some..." Kes coughed, blushed, and shook her head. "Anyway... There's probably still some clothing left. You didn't burn _all_ of it."

"Yes, but that means all that's left is..." Janeway trailed off, and stared at the last item in the closet. She sighed. "Just... Just great," she muttered.

Kes patted her on the shoulder consolingly. "Well... You did say you wanted a change of pace, correct?"

"Kes?"

"Yes Captain?"

"Shut up."

"Yes Captain."

* * *

At the next duty shift, Janeway stood in the turbolift as it ascended to the bridge. Kes was next to her, fidgeting a bit. Janeway looked over at Kes with a frown. The telepath smiled back.

"I just... Wanted to say you look very... Impressive, Captain," Kes said earnestly. "We didn't have anything like that on Ocampa."

"No, I suppose not," Janeway muttered, looking at the doors of the turbolift as the vehicle came to a stop. The doors opened and she stepped out... Having to lift up her skirts. Kes dutifully followed.

"Captain on the bridge," Tuvok announced. Janeway looked at him... And managed to repress her smirk. Her security officer was in his pajamas-Quite literally, and they shown a light purple in the bridge lighting.

"As you were," she said. She looked over at Harry, who was standing at Ops as usual. The unusual part was that he was dressed all in skintight black clothing, a balaclava hanging from his neck. At her scrutiny, he coughed.

"It was for a costume party before I went to DS9," he explained. Janeway nodded.

"I'm guessing you and Ballard went to it together?" She asked. Harry blinked.

"How did you-?"

"She was wearing a similar outfit, only much... _Briefer,"_ Janeway said with a smile. Harry smiled wryly.

"Should have seen what Libby was wearing," he confided.

"Aren't you the little heartbreaker, Harry?" Commented Tom Paris from the conn. Janeway looked and chuckled. Naturally, Tom was in a bright red Hawaiian shirt with yellow flowers splattered all over it, with a pair of blue jeans. He smiled up at Janeway in a charming way. "And Captain, you look very... Matronly."

"It was all I could find," she said dryly, adjusting the Victorian dress she wore for her gothic romance holonovels. She made her way to her chair, and sat down. She looked around. "Chakotay?"

"He was in the ready room, finishing up a few reports," Harry said. Tom was grinning. Janeway raised an eyebrow, and looked to the doors to her ready room. They opened, and out stepped Chakotay... In the army uniform he'd worn during the Hirogen takeover of the ship. He nodded respectfully to Janeway as he walked around and took his seat.

"Captain," he said politely. Janeway smiled and nodded back.

"Commander," she greeted. Frankly she was a bit disappointed. That wasn't nearly as embarrassing as she'd hoped it would be. Kes stood at her side, and looked over at Janeway. She smiled.

_Just wait,_ she said telepathically. Janeway raised her eyebrows. The turbolift doors opened, and arguing was released.

"Your costume caught on my armor!"

"Well it's not _my_ fault your armor is so pointy!"

"IT'S ALL I'VE GOT!"

"E-Everyone, please calm down?"

"Geez Tal, you're one to talk."

Janeway rose and looked back at the turbolift. B'Elanna emerged, grumbling as she adjusted full Klingon armor. Tom Paris whistled.

"Aren't you a sight, B'Elanna?" He said with a grin. The half-Klingon growled at him, and his smile grew. "That's not discouraging me, babe."

B'Elanna said something particularly foul in Klingonese to her boyfriend as she walked over to the engineering console, sat down, and got to work. Janeway's eyes returned to the turbolift. Mortimer Harren, who had been assigned as science officer for this shift, was fidgeting in a brown fedora, brown leather jacket, and other period clothing. It reminded Janeway of something, some film series...?

"Indiana Jones? Very nice, Harren," Paris complimented him. Harren scowled.

"Costume party, _don't ask,"_ he grumbled, walking to his console. All that was left was the vulnerable looking Tal Celes, who had been assigned environmental control for the shift. She was wearing a red and yellow polka-dotted bikini, and trying to cover her dignity with a towel tied around her waist and her hands over her stomach. Harry abruptly stopped typing at his console and stared, as did everyone else. The young Bajoran may have been prone to panic but she was a beautiful woman.

"Er... Um..." Tal tried, wilting under the scrutiny. Janeway offered a comforting smile.

"At ease, Crewman. Take your post," she said gently.

"You can turn up the heat if you need to," Harren said dryly, as the Bajoran hurriedly went over to the environmental console. She blushed deeply.

"Sh-Shut up, Mortimer!" She shot back.

"Might as well called it 'Beach Day'," Tom commented. Janeway settled back in her chair, lips twitching. Kes just kept smiling.

The turbolift doors opened again... And she heard Harry stop typing and gasp softly. Janeway turned her head... And gaped.

"Captain," Seven of Nine returned. Tom looked... And gaped as well. B'Elanna began to curse loudly in Klingon. She heard Harren fall out of his chair, and Tal squeak.

"Seven... You are aware you are nude," Tuvok said. Chakotay was fixedly looking on the viewscreen, much to Janeway's pleasure.

"Clothes are irrelevant. I am perfectly comfortable like this," the former Borg drone stated. "It is the rest of the crew that takes issue with it."

"I don't," Harry said, with enough conviction it made Seven blush. Janeway sighed.

"Seven? Go put something on."

"I'll help her find something," Harry said. "Tal? Take my post."

"Um, uh, ay-aye sir?" Tal managed, as Harry went over to his girlfriend. He wrapped his arm around her waist and led her back into the turbolift. The doors shut behind them. Janeway sighed, and looked over at Tal who was looking a bit less panicky.

"Well Crewman... Let's get the repair work for today done," Janeway said. "I have a feeling Mr. Kim is going to be... Detained for a while."

"Y-Yes captain," Tal managed. Janeway sighed, turned and sat down, smoothing out her dress. Kes remained standing at her side.

"Kes, did that just happen?" She asked. Kes nodded.

"Yes, yes it did."

"I see," Janeway sighed. She looked at Kes and raised an eyebrow. "You know, you seem to have squirreled away some decent clothing."

"I seem to have, didn't I?" Kes replied. Janeway smirked and said in a low voice:

"Then why do you have the Doctor's mobile emitter on your shoulder?"

Kes coughed... And sighed. "Well... Seven isn't the only one going around... Er... Skyclad," she confided.

"I see..."


End file.
